


This Is How

by bixgirl1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alpha Harry Potter, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Claim Biting, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Knotting, M/M, Omega Draco Malfoy, Oral Sex, Partial Second Person POV, Rimming, Scenting, switch POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 02:01:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20350525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bixgirl1/pseuds/bixgirl1
Summary: Omegas are long gone, or so everyone thinks.This is not how things were supposed to go.





	This Is How

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chibaken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibaken/gifts).

> For chibi, whose facebook prompt of "Nervous, a list, and the other side of the door" turned into something incredibly unexpected. ;D~
> 
> Unbeta-ed, please forgive any errors! <3
> 
> All characters belong to JKR and associated publishers.

This is how it should happen: 

You are designated Alpha at seventeen, because of course you are. You grow accustomed to the scent of Betas on the back of your palate, the way everyone has to. There are always one or two in a muted state of arousal — in the corridors of Hogwarts, in Diagon Alley. It's a good smell, attractive. Still, it doesn't take you long to put it to the back of your mind. 

Most choose their mates through a combination of response chemicals and good, old-fashioned dating. So many of them want to be _paired._ Committed. You’ve heard what it can be like, but you opt to find your own Betas through pheromone match-casting. You prefer to be realistic — that sort of happiness is not for people like you.

The Betas you're paired with are fine. They enjoy the fuck and don't want anything serious; they can take your occasional knot with enough lube. It all works out nicely. You rotate through two or three a year and never even growl when you smell another Alpha on them. It's more satisfying than wanking, but not dissimilar. Sometimes you date other men, sometimes you shag them. Wizards outside type-coding. 

Nothing serious.

This is how it should happen — and how it does, for a while. There isn't supposed to be anything else.

* * *

"Are you okay, Harry?" The words are like water, a ripple of current carrying him back into the shallows. "Are you okay? Can you come back to us?"

Harry gulps and shakes his head. Thinks better of it. Nods. He's naked, covered in sweat. There are scratches all over him and his joints are clawed. It takes effort to straighten them out. He can still smell— 

Oh, _god._ He huddles in the corner of the cell. The walls glow white with the strength of the wards. Blinking against their brightness, Harry tunes into Ron's voice. He sounds unnerved — scared. 

"Everything is fine, mate. Just. We're here. It's over. Can you hear—?"

"Who?" Harry says, voice raspy. Cracking. His chest, god, it's sticky with come. His stomach. And there are other smells. All over his hands, all over the room. They tear a whine from his throat. "Who was—? Did I hurt—?"

He can still feel it. The remnants of his knot, the way it's never felt before. But he can't remember anything beyond that _scent_, and the sudden need to be covered in it. To claim it. 

He was training a class, he knows that much. Advanced duelling tactics. He remembers there'd been at least six people out of the dozen watching who'd got shamelessly aroused at his demonstration. Keeping such a thing secret is a futile effort; no one bothers. No one minds. Why would they? It happens. It's expected. 

This, though. This _wasn't_.

Ron ignores the first question. "Everyone's fine. We— we got you isolated before anything happened."

Harry trembles, chin resting upon his knee. "But I can feel— I can smell— He—" The words break off, a riptide yanking him back into the deep. A growl rumbles in his throat, thick with accusation: _Where did you take him? Give him back, give him back._

Hastily, Ron says, "Both of you, I mean, yeah. Both of you. Yeah, you… We just got you into a room before anyone got hurt, put up," he clears his throat, "charms, to prevent—"

Harry wants to howl at that. What right did they have to interfere? To _prevent_ anything? 

_Givehimbackgivehimbackgivehimback—_

"Where did you take him?" His love for Ron is a dwindling thing in the face of that question. In Ron's hesitation to answer it. 

His love for Ron has _never_ been a dwindling thing. 

Suddenly terrified, Harry forces himself to take a breath — in, out, through the mouth. Again. The sour-salt tang of spend is heavy on the back of his tongue. It's so delicious, he wants to moan. _Wet,_ everything had been so _wet._ He doesn't let himself make a sound. And the scent is stronger than the taste; blocking it helps. It clears his head a little. 

"Sorry. Sorry." Harry finally meets Ron's worried gaze through the warded glass. He's got a yellowing black eye, a half-healed hex-gash over his right cheek and eyebrow. Instinctively, Harry knows he's the one who gave it to him. He swallows. "What happened? That's not— what it's—" He wonders how long it went on before he passed out. He's sore all over. Dehydrated. "What it's supposed to be like," he finishes. 

"Not— usually," Ron hedges. "This doesn't… happen, anymore. I think they covered it for about two minutes in the Pairing Dynamics course. The, uh. History of pheromones." He sighs and scratches at the scar on his wrist. Hermione likes to bite him there when they're fucking. Ron's always in a brilliant mood following nights when her teeth has broken skin again. Her own staked claim, a symbol of ownership.

The nerves in Harry's teeth smart suddenly — painfully. He didn't get to bite. Another one of the charms put in place, he guesses, tired and resentful. 

He thinks for a minute. The room is cold, chills rising on his arms, his torso and legs. Temperature-regulation charms are in place. It had seemed so hot before. That's never happened. Sweat is a matter of course while mating, but this heat… It obliterated everything. 

A memory tugs at his psyche. He latches onto it through the whirl of his panic. Follows it down.

_In the eighteenth century, a concentrated resistance began against Omegas. They were too influential, rare and highly revered. The surge of magic from bonded mates was unprecedented. After the war of 1749 was fought over an Omega who refused all of her suitors, the Alphas in power refused to be led around by their heat sources any longer. There came the development of suppression potions, and eventually wizard-kind evolved; the Omega genome died out. A tragedy, said some. Others called it a relief. Either way, it simplified matters. Now, there are only two designations you'll need to prepare for, if you are indeed designated upon your seventeenth birthday. Some of you may be feeling the effects already, may be drawn towards..._

Harry recalls all of it suddenly, clearly: McGonagall's clipped brogue, his own embarrassment and fascination. A time-out from the hell of his sixth-year, from his obsession with—

"Malfoy," he croaks. "It was Malfoy."

Ron presses his lips together. He nods, looking grim. "Yeah, mate. It was Malfoy."

* * *

This is how it _shouldn't_ happen: 

You're at work. You feel off, worse than you have all weekend, and your weekend was absolute shit. You're clammy, overheated, restless. Your skin seems to have shrunk two sizes, and you can smell _everything:_ the dandruff from those who don't condition, the sludge they're serving for lunch in the canteen, the Alphas who look your way and get hard. It nauseates you, makes you gag, makes you bare your teeth in a silent snarl. _Get the bloody fuck **away** from me._ You are an Alpha, they have no right. Some of them back away, others find excuses to come back to your desk. 

Your wand is slippery in your grip. You feel unsafe for the first time in years. And aroused, too, can't help that — you wanked twice before work, finding no gratification in it. Finding yourself more frustrated than before. You start to suspect you shouldn’t have even come in. You have plenty of sick leave, but you’ve worked damned hard to get where you are, three times as hard as another wizard would have needed to, and you hate to take time off. 

The Alphas keep drawing your eye. Merlin, you want to sick up over how attractive they smell. You've never been with another Alpha, though you've heard unbalanced pair-bonding happens. They take turns topping, or so you've been told. You wonder what it could be like — you feel so empty. 

But you don't really want _them._ Just some undefined presence, waiting to make itself known. 

It happens just before lunch, as you're considering going to St Mungo’s. One wrong inhale through your nose — a waft of clean, masculine perspiration coming from down the hall. Your whole body goes rigid in your seat; your cock pulses with what feels like a small climax. Padma's chair creaks as it swivels around. She turns to you from her cubicle, nostrils flaring, a look of concern on her face. She's a Beta, you've got nothing to fear from her, but you feel too exposed. You feel… _damp_, in places that should not be. 

"Draco?" she asks, bewildered. "Are you—?"

You don't let her finish. Can't. You stumble blindly from DMLE Employee Resources in search of the scent that will soothe the blaze suffusing you. Muttering, begging. "Please," you say, and "Oh, god, oh _god._" Your body is on fire, the corridor spinning. 

You shove away the first Alpha who comes at you even though he could fix it, he _could_, maybe you should let him? But no, no, it’s all you can think, how wrong it would feel. Then another Alpha lunges, snapping his teeth — he gets a hex to his cock, and you shake off his angry hands on the whipping tails of your robes. Your next hex is weaker, your next shove. Too many Alphas work in the DMLE, and all of them can scent the sickness on you. All of them can smell the wet. You're running out of resistance, you just need to be _filled,_ need the ache to stop. You let yourself sag into a pair of arms, feel the press of a cock to your backside. Whoever is holding you mumbles frantically in your ear and hikes your robes up, tearing at your flies. You don't want him, you _don’t_, yet you can't fight any longer. 

And then you don't need to because… because then, he's there. Your captor's arms fall away; peripherally, you see him slam into the far wall as you crumple to your knees. You hear a growl, a warning, his magic washing over you like music. And his _scent_, earthy-rich, sweat under his arms, on his bare chest. You know him, _he's_ the one you want. He gathers you up and you press your nose against throat. Training, he was training, that's fine, better than. It gives you this. You lick over the salt on his neck and moan. Try to ride his leg, try to turn and bend, feel the thick, stiff line of his cock, the bulge of his knot already edging against the base. 

"Harry," you gasp, rutting backwards. You've never called him that — not while sharing a lift or a lunch table, not at Teddy's birthday parties, nor even the time you ran into each other in Diagon and went for drinks — but the familiarity tastes like an aphrodisiac on your tongue now, and you say it again, helplessly. "_Harry…_"

"Wait," he mutters, "Draco, _wait,_ god, love." 

But his hands are moving over you and you don't want to wait, can't stop the babble from pouring out of you, your own words spurring you on. Getting you harder. "Fucking bite me. _Bite_ me. Merlin, fuck me. Fuck your knot into me, I want it, I can take it, I want it, I _want it_..." Dizzy when he fucks against you through your trousers and mouths at your neck with a sharp nip of teeth, his breath skittering raggedly over the saliva left on your skin.

There comes a horrible wrench from the sweet relief of his arms. He can't bite you from far away, you try to tell him that, but there are people between you — a ward constructed. He rips it to shreds with his bare hands and has to be pulled back again. Snarling, grasping, then frozen in place. For what feels a thousand years, neither of you can move, except where the Others are moving you. 

Then his hands are on you again, possessive, hard. He'll kill anyone who tries to touch you. You're his, _his_, your heat transferring into his skin, the scent of him blanketing you. He pushes you face down onto a cot, jerks your trousers and pants down past your hips. Panting, you spread your legs as best you can. Getting into position, Harry fumbles, the swollen, round head of his cock coasting off your sopping hole. With a grunt, he aligns. He pushes in, hard and steady, one hand tight on the nape of your neck.

The first breach should hurt, shouldn't it? You've never been fucked before. Yet your body accepts him, your own, inexplicable slick easing the way, and all you can feel is that same relief his arms promised, his smell. You moan, finally filled, and reach back to grab his clenching arse as he pumps into you. He groans your given name and your dripping erection bounces under you, slaps against your belly and the hem of your shirt. 

As though he can sense you want to touch yourself, he grabs the hand clutching his arse. Then the other, the only prop you have to hold yourself up. But he becomes your prop, holding both arms stretched behind your back as he rides you unmercifully, keeping you from falling onto your face, your back at an unnatural arch.

"No," he orders, voice so rough you only recognise it on a visceral level. You'll do anything to obey, the plunge of his cock into you everything you didn't know you craved. "Come from my knot, Draco. Come— from my—" 

The snap of his hips gets faster. You cry out, drool slipping down your chin at the thought of taking it. You nod feebly, pliant and aching. You've never been so hard in your life. 

"Yes. God, knot me. _IwantitHarryplease!_" It's torn out of your throat, oh, you can smell the two of you together, your shoulders strained behind you, his cock driving into you, your bodies sweaty and slapping, oh, oh, oh, you can feel it, and now it _does_ hurt, the stretch of your rim around the thick ball of his knot, it's perfect, frightening, you don't think you— "I _can't,_" you yelp, squirming away, fucking back to take more, _wanting_ it, delirious, "Do it, do it, knot me, your cock, yes, yes, yes," you sob because you can't draw a breath, the words wet as you are, everywhere, wetter as he pushes his knot past all resistance, into you, _in,_ the pulse of his come inside you, spurt after spurt, hot and generous and _yours_, you'll kill anyone who looks at him, he's yours, _yours_ and with that thought in mind, you come, like he demanded — come with his hips jerking tight against your arse, your rim holding his knot inside. 

You come, overstimulated and overfucked. You come from the thought of being owned by him, and from the pressure of his knot throbbing against your prostate, pleasure lit into every jangling nerve you have. You paint your shirt with your climax, your belly, you never want it to end. Harry slumps over you, breath hot on your shoulders, and you let him slide you to the thin padding of the cot. 

You fall asleep like that, connected. You're out for a while, you think. 

When you wake up, he's got his lips sealed around your arsehole. His tongue is inside you. The fever is still there, but— no longer as urgent. The stubble on his cheeks rasps against your buttocks, and you groan, finding his messybeautiful hair with one hand. You arch into his tongue, hear his appreciative sigh, and then a sloppy-embarrassing slurp as he lifts his head. He kisses the inside of your thigh, nuzzles the crease of it. "'m going to make you feel so fucking good," he promises, low, "you'll never want to leave my bed." 

"I— don't," you mutter, twisting your finger into his curls. "Keep me here." 

Harry chuckles quietly, a pleased noise — one that pleases you at having got him to make. You push his head back down. Shudder when he willingly pulls your arse cheeks apart and resumes eating you. He does it earnestly, his tongue swirling around your tender rim, tracing each puffy fold and crinkle, dipping inside you with slow, curling thrusts. He keeps making sounds you've only heard when he eats treacle tart. 

How long have you watched him? Almost longer than you can remember. You’ve never dared to call him a friend, though you’ve begun seeing him so often again over the last couple of years. But your knowledge of him predates that. And he's an Alpha to the core; of the many reasons he's made the papers, his designation status hardly made a blip in the news cycle. It’s Confunded you that you wanted anyway, you could never figure out why. You still only have the bare ghost of an idea as he tongue-fucks your arse and you cry out like a wanton Beta. As you splay and pull up your knees to aid his efforts, and he hums and sucks on your arsehole, massaging your jerking cock with a warm palm. 

Harry adds a finger, two, three. Twists them in your slick, your inner-muscles clinging around them. He laps over your rim, your seam, your bollocks. Sucks them into his mouth one at a time. Covers his teeth and hollows his cheeks, pulling, a different sort of massage. You think you should perhaps be mortified by the new gush of warm wet around Harry's fingers, but you're not. 

You whimper his name, shifting. The burn spreads, intense, to each of your extremities. Your vision mists around everything but the clear peek of those green eyes up at you and that tiny, savage grin as he rises. He tosses your legs over his shoulders, mounts you. All you can do is hold on. His body is so rangy under your fingers, beautiful, sculpted. You want him again as much as the first time; you never stopped, really. You grip his ribcage and lift your hips as he enters you. You want him, and _want him_, and _want him._

_Bite me_ you think as he torments you. Thrusting deep but slowly, measured, his knot apparent but not yet ready to descend to the base of his shaft. _Please, bite me_ you think when he gives it to you a second time, a third, a fourth, filling you up. Wanking you, making you come, making feel better than ought to be humanly possible. _Bite me_, you think, tasting yourself in his kiss, gasping out of it only to breathe. _Make me yours,_ you think, and bare your neck.

But for some reason you can’t say it, and Harry doesn't. 

This is how it shouldn't happen. 

This is how it happens, regardless.

* * *

There's a piece of parchment on Harry's desk the following Monday. The scent on it makes him sway in place. It's subtler than it was during Malfoy's heat, but undeniably _his._ Cock plumping, Harry grinds his teeth and approaches. 

_I wasn’t aware,_ it reads. _My most sincere apologies. I do hope we can forget the whole thing. D.L.M._ His handwriting is practically calligraphy. Harry brings the parchment up to his nose and inhales deeply. He groans and drops his head back, the parchment fluttering from his fingertips to the desktop. 

"Hey." 

Harry nods, eyes still shut. Ron's subdued, though Harry can smell Hermione all over him. He hears him sit down, pull his chair into his desk. 

"You all right?" There's a shuffle of papers, the fidget of something else, perhaps quills. Ron lowers his voice. "How… are things?"

Shrugging, Harry lets the question fester inside him. Most of the memories had come back over the three day weekend he'd been strong-armed into taking. He's already spent too much time contemplating the various degrees of horror woven into the previous week: that he mated with someone who, after years of animosity, he'd begun to tentatively catagorise a friend; that he’d tried to do it in front of forty members of staff; that he injured his best friend in the attempt. That he nearly killed a coworker for the slight of touching what was his. 

That he can't stop thinking of Malfoy like that. 

"Went by Mungo's and apologised to Matthews," he says gruffly. "He's no longer listed as critical." 

Shame, really, Harry'd caught himself thinking at the time. He couldn't stop picturing Malfoy dangling limp in Matthews' rutting grip, or how he'd been trying to strip Malfoy's clothes away. Harry thought it was probably a good thing they didn't cross paths often. 

"That's good." Ron pauses, long enough for Harry to glance at him. His black eye has faded, the gash across his brow and cheek healed. "But what about… Y'know."

"I haven't seen him," Harry says truthfully. 

"Yeah, but don't you…?" Ron trails off, falls blessedly silent. Harry'd prefer not to hear the end of the question, which he suspects is _want to_? 

Yes. _Merlin,_ yes. He wants to see Malfoy. Wants to have him. Wants to be able to decide on what charms they use, and whether or not to use any at all. Wants to bite him on that dipping point at the join of shoulder and neck, feel the split of skin under his teeth. The urge to lay claim is wrath under his skin. He feels strung out, like the worst sort of potions addict, at the thought he might not get the chance.

He doesn't think he'll be able to find relief in knotting someone else, ever again.

Omegas were desired, revered. Now, as far as anyone knows, there's only one in existence. Malfoy was there with Harry; he chose him for his first heat, perhaps drawn to the magic that leapt in Harry at scenting him. It was more than mating, or felt so at the time. He'd clung to Harry, given himself over. Given back as much as he'd took, his breaths collapsing against Harry's chest, his hips rising and falling over him, grinding down to accept his knot for the last time. His breathy voice murmuring, _"Yes,"_ and "More, Harry," and, "_I want— uhh, yesss,_, driving Harry mad with bliss. With the desire to give him _everything_. 

Three days and nights, he'd there with Harry, in a way no one else has ever been. Asked for Harry’s knot, asked for his bite. But there was no way Harry could trust what Malfoy said before the charms had been thrown between them — an Omega in heat might beg for all sorts of things, and he'd escaped the second it was over. He wasn’t shy about having never been exclusive with a Beta, either. _I personally don't see the point,_ he'd told Harry a few months ago over drinks, when Harry lamented the fact that his most recent Beta was moving to the States. _It seems a tremendous fuss, allowing your knot to dictate your emotional connections._

"But you haven't contacted him?" Ron asks suddenly. Flustered, Harry wonders if he’d been speaking aloud, and then Ron shakes his head with a grimace. "Sorry, I know it's none of my… But he's an _Omega_, Harry. And he chose you. Your compatibility must be—" 

It's like taking a _Stupify_ to the chest — not entirely undeserved, after what he did to Ron's face. Harry’s voice comes out funny. Stifled. "Just for the first time. Just for the heat. He wrote me a note. Apologising. He wants to forget about—" 

"You didn't see Malfoy leave," Ron says. Harry swallows his growl at the reminder, still angry over that. If someone had woken him... But then Ron continues, carefully, "I don't like him much," he rolls his eyes at Harry's scoff, "or, fine, at all, but he was... He only went with them because they told him to. They needed to run tests while his pheromones were still strong, active." 

"They— they took him away?" Harry's voice shakes. His hands. He curls his fingers over Malfoy's note; the parchment feels hot. Malfoy's scent is spicy on it, restrained. Tantalising. Harry can taste it on his tongue. 

"Hey." Ron swallows, seeming to realise he's tweaked Harry's instincts. Better than Harry, apparently, who can only focus on his own rage, and whose mind seems intent on feeding him an image of Malfoy being dragged from his arms. Then Ron's beside him, a hand firm on his shoulder. "He _went_, Harry. Made the decision to, they didn't hurt him. And he did write you that note. All I'm saying is… this isn’t familiar territory, anymore. That it might be worth doing a bit of research on the Omega dynamics. Maybe… Maybe all of it doesn't add up to what you think. And I want you to be happy." He squeezes Harry's shoulder, voice dropping. "I mean, I saw you, too, that day."

* * *

This is how it's going to go: 

You walk into your offices on Monday. You can smell him everywhere, the scent of the Alpha you want, like a lick over your skin. Your whole body is still splendidly sore from his ruts. (That swell is always there, but Alphas rarely feel the need to knot more than a few times a _year_; you're not sure how to feel about the disparity.) But you hold your chin high and meet the avid stares you get without expression. Omega or not, you are still Draco Malfoy. Notoriety might as well be your middle name by now, but you are above indulging the curiosity of others.

However.

Your things are in a box on your desk when you reach your cubicle. They smell faintly of the lotion Padma applies to her hands after lunch. You turn to her, heart beating unsteadily, and quirk an eyebrow. Her face is apologetic. 

"Sorry," she says. "Really, Draco. They told me to. But they said it's not a demotion, I swear. It's just—" she fiddles with the dark, complicated plait slung over her shoulder for a moment, "—all of the supervisors on this level are Alphas. And after what happened with Harry and the others… They thought it best to give you an office on a different level. To avoid, um. Problems, since, rumour has it, you two didn't..." 

"So, not demoted, but shunned. How fun." You click your tongue since you can do nothing else, and decline to answer her unspoken question. "Well, it's not as if I have no experience in _that_, at least."

Your new office is small, but fine. Scent wards are in place. The new employment packet they've included with your things explains that you'll be receiving a generous pay bump for the inconvenience of having to move back and forth between floors for meetings. It smells of your direct supervisor's spunk; he must've wanked before filling it out. Perhaps while he was doing it. 

You _Incendio_ it, wondering if you were this rude when you thought you were an Alpha. If you would have lost your mind at the scent of an Omega in heat. There were those who didn't. You had trouble noticing in the moment, but you’re sure there were some who stepped in to pull the others off of you. 

And Harry (_Potter_, your mind corrects when you flinch like you’ve been whipped), the only thing in your field of vision at the time. His hands were hard on you, but he waited, hadn't he? Until you tasted his neck and rubbed against him, until you begged. Protective as ever.

Your prick swells at the memory. You'd like a wank, yourself — another, that is. You spent your weekend doing it, when they were done with the damn tests. You could only produce a nominal amount of your own lubricant after the heat, had to resort to Conjuring some over your fingers before fucking yourself with them. Thinking about Potter, his smile and heated laugh. His cock, his knot. The utter rotter. No one else had ever made you feel so good.

With a sigh, you push him, it, out of your mind. Once again, it's time to rebuild. To move on with a new life. 

Whatever that may be. 

A few days pass. You’re productive, if a little lonely. But at least you find it quiet, and because they’ve relegated you to a hidden corner of Obscure Artifacts, you’re able to play the Wireless a bit without reprimand. The treks to and from Employee Resources take a good quarter of your workdays. It’s annoying but not unmanageable. You realise with chagrin that your placement is probably wise; the looks you receive are far too keen, though you’re done with your heat. 

And then.

On Friday, the hair rises on your arms. On the back of your neck. Through layers of Scent Warding, you can feel it, smell it. Him. You were humming along with the latest Celestina Warbeck, and your voice breaks into a soft whine. Your quill snaps from the pressure of your fingers, your prick stiffening so quickly it aches. 

He’s on the other side of your door. Without conscious intention, you cross the room to stand in front of it. You’ve been breathing into a handkerchief whenever you’ve been on his floor to stifle the draw of his scent, and it’s overwhelming now. What does it mean, that he’s seeking you out? Obviously, there can be nothing between you. There can be only what was and what happened, no matter what else you may want.

Despite that, your knees go weak when a sheet of parchment is pushed under the door. The hard onslaught of _earthytangyrich_ soaked into something he’s recently touched stirs the beginnings of your own knot, uncomfortably, deep in your pelvis. 

With shaking hands, you lift the parchment and wonder how, exactly, this is going to go.

* * *

Research takes too long. Harry’s never been clever with it, operates on instinct most of the time. That his instincts are usually spot on doesn’t make cross-referencing any easier. But Ron helps, and finally Hermione as well — visibly reluctant at first, and then, with a softening gaze at Ron spelling soup from his t-shirt, more sincerely. 

“I know what it’s like,” she confesses quietly when he thanks her. “I spent months, after I turned seventeen, not knowing whether we’d suit once his birthday came around. And knowing that even if we did, there was no guarantee he’d want me to claim him. Wanting someone so deeply and not having them…” She sighs, and turns a page. “But even I can’t imagine how bad that uncertainty might have felt if he’d presented as an Omega. I just want you to be sure.”

The warning inherent in Hermione’s logic holds; wars have been fought over Omegas, after all. Yet she says it from the heart, and Harry’s torn as he realises he can’t be sure of anything. Not what he wants, nor what Malfoy (_Draco_, his mind whispers insidiously when he flinches at the formality) might. The apology note throws shadows over everything, and Harry twists in bed each night, touching the looping scrawl of the words on the page. Breathing in Malfoy’s fading scent — wanting him on instinct, for better or worse. 

He thinks, _Your instincts haven’t failed you yet,_ and goes to sleep with his nose pressed to parchment.

Harry makes a list when he wakes up, then uses his high-clearance access to snoop through the Ministry Directories and find the location of Malfoy’s office. It’s quiet, where they’ve put him; there’s an abandoned feel to the whole maze of a wing. But Malfoy’s scent is there, pulsing hotter than the hints Harry’s had of it over the last few days, lighting his way like a beacon on a dark shore. 

He slips the list under the door and waits, hands pressed to the wood. Stomach flipping, and heart, too.

_This week I read that being around the Alpha they desired could spur a dormant Omega's presentation. That prior attraction existed without exception between Alphas and Omegas who chose, together, to share a heat.  
I chose it.  
I think you did, too.  
It’s more than our pheromones.  
I'll leave you alone if that's what you really want.  
I want to stay your friend.  
I want so much more.  
I want to choose you again, if you let me.  
I’m not sorry.  
I don’t want to forget._

Seconds tick by like hours, measured by the drum of Harry’s heartbeat. And then the door opens. The lack of barrier strips everything away — logic and uncertainty, even Draco’s last name. Harry’s not aware of striding to him, just that he _can_ and _has_, the meet of their lips so perfect it makes him moan. Draco’s heat is over but it doesn’t feel like a loss, his _warmexpensivecleanmine_ smell a relief to Harry’s lungs. His hands find Harry’s hair, his tongue curls into Harry’s mouth. He laughs breathlessly against Harry and rolls his hips.

“I’m not—” he says, smiling. “I won’t, right now, be able to get— We'll have to use—”

“I just wanted to ask if you’ll come out with me sometime,” Harry says between kisses, "so control yourself," and grins when Draco laughs again. He can feel full hard length of Draco’s cock against his hip, the burgeoning thickness of his knot. It sends a wracking shiver of uneasy arousal through him. He’s never, before, has never had cause to consider it. Finds himself considering it now as Draco grips his arse with both hands and grinds against him: what it'd be like to take a knot. If it's even possible. 

"Harry," Draco says, the ease of his laughter growing husky, heated. "W-will you—"

"Anything," Harry says, walking him backwards to his desk and pushing him down. Meaning it. "Anything." 

Draco's hands are all over him, the part of his thighs as natural a thing as the fit of Harry's hips between them. They kiss, break, kiss again. Rutting together — deliberate, easy. The fever simmers between them; they're free to let it reach its own boiling point. 

"Will… Will you..." Draco whimpers as Harry nips at his chin with a deep inhale. "...come out with me sometime?" he asks, panting raggedly and pressing his nose to Harry's temple. He lifts his knees on either side of Harry's rib cage — taking control in every way, the Alpha and Omega in him allowing nothing less.

"Fuck, yes," Harry says, his growl more delighted than he ever knew it could be. He takes Draco's mouth in another kiss, and thinks of the sink of his teeth into Draco's neck, when Draco chooses it. 

He will, Harry's sure. 

Someday soon, he will.

* * *

This is how things are: 

You wake up most mornings to Harry Potter at your side. Or atop you, or mouthing his way down your body. You fuck in bed, in the shower, and sometimes in the supply cupboard at work, on your lunch break. You take the downgrade to your salary in stride when they transfer you back; you're so constantly saturated in Harry's scent, most Alphas are too intimidated to even meet your eyes. You accept an invitation to coffee with Padma and fill her in on the details, grudgingly warmed by her enthusiasm and support. It makes you four minutes late for a date with Harry, and he drags you to the pub Floo, takes you to his, and shags you against the wall next to his fireplace. 

"I was worried," he groans against the back of your ear as he comes, deftly plucking your nipples. He pulls out and turns you around, drops to his knees. Swallows your prick with such dedication your knot fills his mouth. He suckles around the bulge, lets you come and come down his throat. He wanks off while you do it, then takes you out to dinner. 

Harry holds your hand in public. He introduces you as, "Draco Malfoy, my mate," as though people don't know who you are. His stare is so forbidding that sometimes you think they actually forget. His friends greet you with some trepidation, but kindly. You catch Granger giving you a curious sniff and raise your eyebrows at Harry, who’s gone tense but hasn’t pulled his wand as you've no doubt he would with others. She rolls her eyes at you both, then shrugs and gives a little nod before moving back to Weasley's side and tucking her face into his neck. Harry has dinner with them at least once a week, and invites you along. You go, when you don't have plans with your own friends. 

You talk about it, in the middle if a middle-of-the-night fuck. Things between you have been fast, but being around him so often whittles away your time to consider — not that you need to, really. They told you to expect it twice a year, but after a mere two months, you're already jumpy, your body readying for its next heat. Regardless, you know what you want. Harry should, too. 

"Claim me," you mutter restlessly into his throat. The taste of his skin is even sweeter with the vague notes of the wine you had at dinner. You swivel your hips in time with the pump of his cock into you and hold his wrists down on the mattress, liking (_loving_) that the Alpha inside him makes no objection — that it never has. _Whatever you want,_ he tells you too often, in a voice that makes you ache, _Anything, love, anything, whatever you want._ "The next time I— Bite me. I want it. I'll want it. I'll—"

He snarls softly and rears up with his head, latching his lips onto the curve where your neck meets your shoulder. You come with a rush of endorphins and cry out, spilling over the jumping planes of his stomach as he fucks up into you hard. The spot is brilliantly bruised in the morning. You don't heal it; you wear your robes open at the collar for the next few days. It's where he'll leave the scar of his teeth when it's time. You like looking at it. Harry does too. 

He hovers around you the whole week before you hurtle into your second heat — just under three months after the first. This time there's no pain, no confusion or desperation, except to get closer to him; you wake up soaking, already penetrated, your fattened cock held proprietorially in his fist. You come as he fucks his knot into you, as his teeth break your skin. 

In the aftermath, still linked, you turn your head and kiss the line of his throat. Without thinking, you sink your teeth in until he bleeds. It tastes like metal, like seawater, like _heatandsexandmine_, and Harry groans and tilts his head to give you more access, his cock pulsing again inside you, his pleasure at having been claimed, too, slipping hot over your tongue. 

This sort of happiness is not one you ever thought you'd find. 

And yet, somehow, this is how things are.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are lovely. 
> 
> Also, I'm on [tumblr](bixgirl1.tumblr.com) now, too! *waves*


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